Domesticating suffering in North Africa: Augustine and the preaching of the Psalms on the feast days of the martyrs

Abstract:

This article examines why Augustine cleansed his sermons on
the Psalms on the feast days of the martyrs of graphic and vivid
descriptions of suffering found in earlier martyr narratives, and
looks at what replaced them. It is argued that Augustine
“domesticates” suffering, and reconstructs the martyr narratives
for a post-martyrdom Catholic Church, especially in
response to dominant discourses active in the rival Donatist
movement, which had effectively monopolised physical suffering.
He does this via four discourses: a) The continuity of
physical suffering from the early martyrs to the current Donatist
martyrs present in the martyrologies assumes a claim on
genealogy, which Augustine has to counter; b) There is a focus
on the physical body of the martyr, with prurient and erotic
detail in Donatist martyr stories, while Augustine proposes a
new scopic economy, equally yet differently erotic, of “spiritual
seeing”; c) The sacrifice of the martyr as atonement for
sins stands out as a main point of difference between the
Donatists and Augustine, and so Augustine develops one of the
earliest psychotheologies of suicide; and d) Augustine provides
a counter-discourse to a claim to mnemonic spatiality which
provides the Donatists with healing and a sense of belonging
and, most importantly, signifies a stance of purity over and
against the Catholics. Finally, this article asks what the
psychagogical effect of this domestication was on the everyday
life of the Catholic Christians.

Citation:Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, vol 38, no 1, pp 197-215

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